(Almost) every Saturday we review all Kickstarter campaigns in the "Games" category ending in the next week. We do a quick write up on anything we find notable here. This is written from the perspective of people looking to buy games and game accessories that offer interesting mechanics or ideas. We prefer heavy strategy games, RPG Games, miniature-heavy games, and games with real-time mechanics as opposed to party games, children's games, or very light strategy games.

We Backed

Sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is. These are the campaigns we backed in this batch.

To get to the gameplay in Miremarsh you have to scroll through about 10 pages of ultra-detailed component counts, miniatures, and add-on options. This makes it a no-brainer for FOMO of the Week.

Sometimes that much focus on components can be a warning sign that the actual game is underdeveloped. In Miremarsh, you play a bog goblin (goblins that live in a bog) who are vying to be the next Goblin King. The gameplay twist here is that your goblins die very easy and when they die, you simply replace them with a new one.

The game has truly beautiful sculpts, particularly on the monsters. Another really cool thing is that they have crossover packs with other companies, including a Kickstarter we've previously backed called the Iron Crows. The game is created by Room 17 games who has done two prior Kickstarters: Flicky Ships (which was cancelled), and Museum Rush (7.4 BGG).

Board Games

This is an atmospheric solitaire game where you will be exploring a dungeon and attempting to find the exit before you run out of time. The map tiles and game look nice. I think though, the gameplay looks fairly simplistic for a solo game, essentially you're just randomly pulling cards off the top of a draw pile to build the maze. There are a few special cards, but they appear to mostly just reset the labyrinth.

This is an interesting and well-thought-out take on the Pictionary game format. This time you will be using various wooden bobs to act out various scenarios and try to have other players guess what you're building. I was impressed with the design of the cards from both a visual and game design perspective. However, I'm not convinced there's enough variety in these pieces to make a really compelling game.

In this game you will be drafting cards from a shop to build a castle. Then players draw a disaster and your castle must survive whatever that is. This looks like a nice fun and light card game with some good visual design.

SiegeStorm is a card battle game with both solo, versus, and 2-player co-op as well. It has an intriguing concept of putting the game's massive Action Selection onto all of the cards. Each card has 3 choices that can be made, making them all flexible, allowing you to take the best action for the situation. It's 30 GBP Shipped to the US, and is a tempting back, but I'll wait for the reviews!

Rurik is an intriguing Worker Placement game that looks and feels a lot like Game of Thrones the board game meets Heroes of Air, Land and Sea in a more historical setting. The interesting catch to this game is the worker placement board where you'll be bidding your workers to get the best actions in each category (Taxing, Mustering, etc.) This is also available to play on Tabletopia.

Kickstarter has definitely breathed life into licensed games that you'd traditionally only see in the dregs of the Target board games section. This looks like a faithful adaptation of the popular endless runner Jetpack Joyride. The game is created by Lucky Duck Games, who had unsuccessfully attempted to adapt another app hit into a board game, Fruit Ninja.

This is an interesting-looking real-time game where you are placing see-through path tiles onto a board attempting to score the most points before the first player exits the level. You also need to keep your eye on Achievements on the game board. Looks like fun.

This mega-hit Kickstarter is a sequel to the very popular sci-fi 4X game Eclipse (#33 All-Time BGG). This is technically an "update" of the original, so its likely it will make the old games somewhat obsolete (unless a lot of players like the original better.) It looks like updated art, design, and some new gameplay options (including expansions.)

Ambar has a really unique visual style that looks contemporary but is reminiscent of illuminated medieval books. I definitely like that a lot. The game itself is a card strategy game where you explore, push your luck to get amber, then craft the amber into jewelry that you sell. In turn, you use your gold to invest in your mining engine.

I bet these guys were really upset when another game called Villagers was a huge hit on Kickstarter last month. While the earlier game was about having villagers build a town and create resources, this is a werewolf-like game. You will be playing villagers attempting to uncover infected villagers and plague doctors.

Not the best name for a anthropomorphic deckbuilder about the Roman Senate, but the game itself looks intriguing. The art is really quite good (and not heavily featured on the page, be sure to watch the videos.) This is a hand-made game all with the parts created and assembled by various US sources (DriveThruCards, GameCrafter, and an Etsy shop.) This explains the high price ($49.)

A giant miniatures tower defense game. The miniatures are sort of baroque Sci-Fi (Reminiscent of Warhammer 40K), and super-highly detailed. This is a reprint of a previous Kickstarter (7.8 BGG), with a new expansion included. This game is super-pricey with a $350 all-in pledge.

RPGs

Geist is a story-heavy RPG in the vein of Vampire: The Masquerade (It actually is set in that there in the World of Darkness)where you play a tormented soul brought back from the dead to do ghostly things.

Cathulhu is a Call of Cthulhu spin-off where the players are playing cats as investigators. Obviously there's not enough adventures for this campaign world, so Golden Goblin Press has taken it upon themselves to craft six new adventures.

This is an extensive sourcebook for Underdark races, environs, and classes. The book has great design and art, and looks like it touches on a lot of areas of the Underdark that the official material hasn't covered.

Since the re-release of Blood Bowl, there's been a huge number of creatively designed teams getting Kickstarted. This is one of my favorites. An alternate Amazon team with post-apocalyptic women as a theme. This is also great for Mutant Crawl Classics.

There has been an influx of dog-based RPGs where you actually play dog adventurers. Well, here's Animal Adventurers to give you a miniatures option for those campaigns. I would have never guessed that a basic Animal miniatures kickstarter would raise this much, but it's interesting because you almost always see anthropomorphic adventurers, but never actual animal adventurers. I guess that was a hole in the market!

Miscellaneous

This is a great idea. A world-building set of tiles that can be used for ultra-portable decked-out adventures. The Kickstarter has really taken off and a lot of stretch goals have been unlocked, making this a great deal (you get a ton of content, enough to make a whole town or dungeon.)

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*None of the campaigns mentioned here are sponsored or influenced via payment, prize or other means. If we know or have a connection to someone running the campaign, we will mention it in the campaign notes. If there is a campaign you think should be mentioned here, please e-mail us and tell us what makes it special and we'll review!